Virgin Media has removed peak time download caps on its network, easing things up for a great majority of customers.
The changes, due to go live early this morning, will mean that customers won’t have to keep an eye on the clock during peak hours when they’re browsing the web, downloading updates and streaming on-demand content.
A Virgin Media spokesperson confirmed to Recombu: “We’ve taken the decision to amend our traffic management policy.
“As of today, we will not apply peak time management to any customers’ downstream traffic on our network.”
The decision to drop traffic management for downloads follows the cable network relaxing its policy last October, following an ASA ruling.
Customers who exceeded a set limit during peak hours (4:00PM-11:00PM weekdays, 11:00AM-11:00PM on weekends) would see their download speed cut by 10 per cent for an hour. Customers who exceeded a second threshold would then see their speed dropped by 16 per cent.
Prior to that, traffic management would cut speeds by 30 per cent and subsequently 40 per cent.
From now on, Virgin Media customers won’t have to contend with such restrictions. It’s important to note that traffic management on upstream traffic remains in place. Anyone thinking of uploading 4K video footage from a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to YouTube had better hold fire ‘til peak time is over.
P2P sites such as BitTorrent will continue to be affected by traffic management as will Usenet and similar newsgroup sites, as per the terms of Virgin Media’s Fair Use Policy.
While Virgin Media’s service still isn’t truly unlimited – BT, Sky and TalkTalk currently don’t manage any traffic – this move will benefit a large number of customers who will soon be enjoying faster speeds, thanks to the launch of 152Mbps and a new speed boosting programme.
Image: Jef Seghers/Flickr
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